President-elect Donald Trump has a big job ahead of him in restoring common sense and sanity to federal energy policy when he takes office on January 20. [emphasis, links added]
The last four years in this realm can more accurately be characterized as a series of ill-considered, irrational scams than as any sort of coherent, productive set of policies.
It has been four years of bad policies — largely based on crass crony capitalism principles — that have done severe damage to America’s level of energy security.
No doubt cleaning up this mess left behind by President Joe Biden and his appointees will take the full four years of Trump’s second term. But the new president will be able to take some fast actions to jump-start the process as part of his first 100-day agenda.
With respect, here is a list of 10 quick common-sense actions Trump can take to begin to restore America’s energy security:
1 — Rescind Biden’s ridiculous permitting “pause” on LNG export infrastructure. Of all the Biden energy policy scams, this was perhaps the most heinous and unjustified of all. Terminate it immediately and get this American growth industry back on track.
2 — Terminate U.S. participation in the Paris Climate Agreement and any future annual COP conferences sponsored by the United Nations. Halt the spending of federal dollars related to any and all goals and commitments related to either of these wasteful processes.
3 — Terminate the office of Senior Advisor to the President for International Climate Policy, aka “the Climate Envoy,” currently occupied by John Podesta, and eliminate its budget.
4 — Turnabout being fair play, Trump should invoke a “pause” of his own related to permits and subsidies going to Biden’s pet offshore wind boondoggle. The pause would be justified by the need to conduct a truly thorough study on the potential impacts of those massive developments on marine mammals, seabirds, and the commercial fishing industry. Invoke the “precautionary principle” that has been ignored by Biden regulators related to these costly and possibly deadly projects.
5 — Order the Interior Department to immediately and aggressively restart the moribund oil-and-gas leasing program on federal lands and waters. Direct the Interior Department Inspector General to investigate the Biden-era manipulations of these programs for potential criminal violations.
6 — Form an interagency task force to recommend ways the executive branch of government can act to streamline permitting processes for energy projects that do not require congressional action. Congress has proven several times now that it is incapable of passing legislation in this arena.
7 — Place an immediate hold on all green energy subsidies pending a full compliance review. This should include any and all subsidy programs that were part of the IRA or the 2021 Infrastructure Law. This review should also include suggested reforms to qualification requirements for these subsidy programs in light of the high percentage of bankruptcy filings by unsustainable companies that have benefited from these subsidies.
8 — In light of the Supreme Court’s recent recission of the Chevron Deference, order the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to review the rationale for regulating atmospheric carbon dioxide, aka “plant food,” as a pollutant under the provisions of the Clean Air Act.
9 — Order an interagency review of the U.S. power grid and transmission infrastructure as they relate to national security concerns. Include a special focus on the current, growing trend of major tech firms locking up power generation assets for their own specific needs (AI, data centers, etc.) which might deny generation capacity that would otherwise be dedicated to the public grid.
10 — In light of recent reports of Biden regulators steering billions of dollars of IRA and other green energy funds to NGOs to provide funding for anti-fossil-fuel propaganda, lawfare, and other abuses of the legal system, order an immediate freeze on all such spending pending a formal review.
In reality, this list could consist of hundreds of high-priority items for the new administration to undertake. Such is the level of damage that has been wrought on American energy security by the outgoing administration.
But executing these ten items in the early days of his second term would represent a good start and place the country on a path to recovery. We wish Trump and his appointees the best of luck in restoring U.S. energy security.
Read more at Daily Caller
Sometime the ethanol debacle started by Bush has to end. We have to stop using agriculture to produce fuels. Inefficient way to generate liquid transportation fuel.
I’d like to see the XL Pipeline construction re-commenced and completed during the next four years.
It is beyond my comprehension to understand the remotest justification for Biden’s actions on energy production. I can only assume he is ignorant to the facts of the issue, and, he has deliberately intended to damage America, so as to advantage the enemies – China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.
When I consider that Biden is about to announce a ban on off-shore drilling, I’m convinced his intent is to damage America, because there can be no other reasonable explanation.
Governor Nuisance here in California’s Gasoline Car Ban should be Terminated Totally return all Farmland to the orgional Owners and out of Ownership by Gates and Schwab
Regarding the UN Climate Agreement the way for Trump to dispose of it once and for all so that a future Democrat administration cannot reinstate it is to do what Obama was obligated to do to start with. And that is to submit this treaty (which is what it is) to the Senate for ratification. But since he knew it wouldn’t pass he just signed it and said we are obligated to uphold our end of the treaty–that’s not what the Constitution says. So Trump should submit it to Congress who will dutifully put it up for vote, a vote needing 2/3rds of the Senators to approve. This would kill it for good.
Steve, you are absolutely correct. The nations that ratified the Paris Treaty did so by going through their process for treaty ratification. It is a severe over reach for Obama and Biden to believe they could commit the US to the treaty with nothing more than their signature. We really need to be sure this doesn’t happen again by having the Senate reject it.
They should review every decision and policy change Biden ever made, to test it for being UnAmerican
I would call it Treason actually… deliberate treason.